096. Ecological preconditions for the spread of zooanthroponoses map

The synthetic map “Environmental prerequisites of the spread of zooanthroponoses” is intended primarily for institutions working on the issues of nature conservation, environmental management, and human safety (in a broad sense of the term), as well as for the territory development planners. In the process of compiling the map, an ecological classification of zooanthroponoses was developed based on their relations with natural complexes and groups of animals. This classification subdivides them into ubiquitous (widely, almost universally spread), riparian, meadow, forest, and steppe groups. Each of these groups combines ecologically close species of pathogens with similar needs for heat and moisture and circulating in the same type of biocenosis.

The map shows a territorial distribution of spatial units of the nosoecological division of different taxonomic ranks: nosoecological belts, zones, and regional variants of zonal nosoecosystems. The aforementioned ecological groups of pathogens dominate in corresponding nosoecosystems of the high rank (zonal). In this case, representatives of other ecological groups are usually widespread in local habitats. The map gives a key to the development of a strategy aimed at preventing the spread of zooanthroponoses in the system of sustainable environmental management. There is a reason to believe that different ecological groups of pathogens perform different roles in maintaining the stability of biocenoses and preserving the natural environment. Representatives of the riparian and meadow groups regulate the quantitative composition of the vertebrate animals’ population (mostly rodents), stopping their mass reproduction and thus preventing the destruction of vegetation. Apparently, pathogens of the forest group (in particular, the tick-borne encephalitis virus) are able to regulate the qualitative composition of a biocenosis, protecting it from alien species, i.e. inhabitants of other (neighboring) terrain types (meadow, steppe), the number of which is subject to significant fluctuations. In seems that pathogens of the group of ubiquitous zooanthroponoses can perform various functions regulating qualitative and quantitative characteristics, but only in the group of parasites associated with vertebrates in a given biocenosis, thereby ensuring survival and well-being to their hosts.

These functional differences can become the basis for the development of a system of the differentiated (by landscape types) prevention of the spread of zooanthroponoses taking into account the issue of the nature and human health protection. The current level of research gives grounds to consider the regulation of the epizootic process as reasonable in those parasitic systems (riparian and meadow), where the function of pathogens is the reduction of the hosts’ number. The prevention of the spread of most zooanthroponoses (included in the riparian and meadow groups) should be carried out to optimize the density of animal population through a sustainable use of meadow vegetation by humans and the timely crops harvesting. The consequences of the human intervention in the process of circulation of pathogens regulating qualitative parameters of the structure of biocenoses are less obvious. The intensity of pathogen circulation of almost all zooanthroponoses (infections and invasions) increases in habitable and populated areas, which is due both to the introduction of farm animals, the increased concentration of which favors the development of infections, and to the human impact on the environment accompanied by the increase in the number of rodents, a change in the chemistry of soils, creation of artificial ponds, etc.